If you have seen any of my presentations, online or in person, you will know that I am not a fan of slides with hundreds of words. Usually I just have a picture and a few words or phrase.
These words are there for you, the audience, to remember the key fact and as a reminder to me about what I am supposed to talk about. Sometimes they're not enough and I have a few extra notes just for me. (At JoomlaDay Chile all my slides were in Spanish so the notes were very important to me as I don't speak any Spanish).
I create my presentations with Keynote for the Mac which lets me display the slide on the big screen and also the notes on my laptop. I can also see the next slide on my screen which is particularly useful if you have several slides on a topic so that you don't cover everything on the first slide.
When you're giving a presentation it is essential that you are prepared for everything and recently I have given several presentations where the laptop is not in front of me, the speaker. I'm also not a fan of standing at a lectern and presenting, I prefer to walk around the a stage as I speak. I can either have someone else press the button for the next slide or use a simple remote but then I lose all my lovely notes etc.
This is where Presentation Remote from Wooji Juice comes in. This app and Mac application allow me to connect, using wifi, Keynote with my iPad (or iPhone/iPod touch) and then I can drive the presentation from anywhere.
Moving to the next slide is as simple as sliding your fingers across the screen - so you don't need to lose eye contact with your audience hunting for a pesky button.
Presentation Remote has two modes depending on if the iPad is held in portrait or landscape mode. In portrait I can read all my speaker notes and in landscape I can see the current and next slides and switching between the two is a simple case of turning the iPad.
Whilst I never use one myself I know that many presenters like to use a laser pointer to highlight things. Unfortunately for me that little red dot is just too dam small to really see. Presentation Remote has thought of this and you can use your finger to highlight points on the screen.
Although the connection is made via wifi you do not need a working internet connection as you can easily create a direct wifi connection between the Mac and the iPad. In fact I recommend this option as you never know what the wifi connection will be like over the internet and you wouldn't want it to die in the middle of the presentation.
Technically this is an iPhone not an iPad app and in an ideal world I would be able to see the notes and the images of the slides at the same time. I've spoken to Wooji about this and maybe it will happen in a future version.
The app itself is not free but it is a fraction of the cost of a remote control device and offers so much more so why don;t you check out Wooji Presentation Remote for yourself.
